Today, Monday the 27th of October, second day in the 30th week of the ordinary time in the year of grace 2014, Jesus unties a woman who had been tied by Satan for 18 years. He unties her from the ties of the Adversary to tie again, to tie her back – to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob

This woman was bent toward earth, her horizon was limited to a circle with feet inside it, hers and the others’. This woman is straightened back, put back up. Then what is her horizon now ? It is the circle of the faces in the synagogue, it is the roof, it is the sky. And she bursts into the praise of the Lord who untied her so that she could tied herself back to the community of the believers, to the Heaven.

Teresa of Avila before she was 40 years old. What was her horizon at that time ? The parlour with the hot air, the mundane gossips, the games of seduction with boys, all the easier since nothing can happen. The convent with its hierarchy, the influence peddlings, the clans.

“ I hold you by the little goatee, you hold me by the little goatee, the first to laugh will receive a little tap”. We hold one another, we bind one another mutually, in a merry-go-round world which goes round without God – Which goes all the rounder by using the name of God to justify itself – expelling the ones who cannot follow the pace.

There she was with little contentment, littles joys, little frustrations – something a little cold, something a little hot – tepid ? – and in a small corner of her mind a small light blinking continuously saying : “something is wrong, something is not at its place, something is missing”.

Teresa of Avila when 40. The denouement : she is freed, she doesn’t care any longer of what people say, about the point of honor of the Castilian society, about her being called names : vain at the best, mad at the worst. Teresa is freed, untied – and she can enter the service of God, she is able to worry about only one thing : the honor of God.

Teresa is untied from what drags downwards toward the pit, she can be tied back to what draws upwards, to the Heaven. And this is the dance ; the joy, this is the pierced heart which is yearning after being pierced again.

Brothers and sisters, let us make no mistake. Being freed by the Christ, with the Christ, in the Christ means exchanging a yoke for another, exchanging a tie for another – it still means being tied. Being untied from the Earth in order to be tied back to the Heaven. We are still in the world. But we are no longer from the world.

And the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because that Jesus had healed on the sabbath day, and said unto the people, There are six days in which men ought to work : in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the sabbath day.